Competitive Strategy

It’s never just about having the right strategy, though it does always start there. Let’s get the platform strategy right and start executing!

Ahh, my first love. My first job was working for the Boston Consulting Group (BCG). BCG taught me that business is a competitive game. And what better game to play in than multi-sided platforms. Platform strategy is the equivalent of multi-dimensional chess!

A B2B platform must determine:

which sides of the platform to engage, in what order

how to engage competitors in an industry to cooperate in using the platform

how to become a “middleman” without being disintermediated, while disintermediating others

how to compete against other platforms in a market with “winner-take-all” dynamics

B2B platforms are a wonk’s dream. I try to bring to bear for my clients everything I have learned from:

classic corporate strategy

game theory

the latest research on multi-sided markets and platform strategy, as well as